For those of you who wrote to me that Fukushima rice was “safe” because it all “tested” well below the safety limit of 500 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium, sorry. NHK has a piece of bad news for you.

630 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium has been detected from the rice grown and harvested in Onami District of Fukushima City in Fukushima. It was discovered only because one farmer asked the local JA to test his rice.

The entire Onami District was declared good to ship the rice, after the Fukushima prefectural government tested 2 samples in one location in Onami District.

Onami District of Fukushima City has high radiation contamination, and that’s where the volunteers have been sent to “decontaminate”, scooping out the sludge in the drain by hand, among other pleasant activities. (If you read Japanese, here’s a report by very pro-nuke Nikkei Business on “decontamination” volunteering in Onami: http://t.co/pSgB131c)

It has been revealed that 630 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium, exceeding the national provisional safety limit, was detected from the rice harvested in a location in Onami District of Fukushima City [in Fukushima Prefecture]. Fukushima Prefecture has requested the farmers in Onami District to refrain from shipping this year’s crop.

According to Fukushima Prefecture, a farmer in Onami District of Fukushima City asked the local JA (agricultural co-op) to test his rice harvested in one of his rice paddies for radioactive materials. In a simplified test administered by the JA, radioactive cesium exceeding 500 becquerels/kg was detected which exceeded the national provisional safety limit.

Fukushima Prefecture then tested again, and 630 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium was detected from the brown rice. The farmer has about 840 kilograms of rice harvested, but it is not being sold in the market. Upon receiving the test result, the Fukushima prefectural government requested all the rice harvested in Onami District of Fukushima City, including that of this farmer, to be not shipped this year.

In the “main survey” that Fukushima Prefecture conducted last month to measure radioactive materials in rice, two locations in the former Oguni-mura in Onami District were tested. Radioactive cesium detected there were vastly below the national provisional safety limit, at 33 becquerels/kg and 28 becquerels/kg, and the prefectural government allowed the shipment from the entire district. The Fukushima prefectural government plans to conduct a detailed survey of [the rice harvested in] all 154 farms in Onami district, and investigate the cause [of high radioactive cesium content].

… these are not “dosimeters” but “glass badges” that passively collect radiation information. It won’t help these children or their parents to avoid high-radiation areas and spots, it won’t tell them how much radiation they will have been exposed unless they are sent in to a company to interpret the data.

Radiation exposure is increased by a factor of a trillion. Inhaling even the tiniest particle, that’s the danger.

Yo: So making comparisons with X-rays and CT scans has no meaning. Because you can breathe in radioactive material.

Hirose: That’s right. When it enters your body, there’s no telling where it will go. The biggest danger is women, especially pregnant women, and little children. Now they’re talking about iodine and cesium, but that’s only part of it, they’re not using the proper detection instruments. What they call monitoring means only measuring the amount of radiation in the air. Their instruments don’t eat. What they measure has no connection with the amount of radioactive material.

Dr. Helen Caldicott (Co-founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility):

You’ve bought the propaganda from the nuclear industry. They say it’s low-level radiation. That’s absolute rubbish. If you inhale a millionth of a gram of plutonium, the surrounding cells receive a very, very high dose. Most die within that area, because it’s an alpha emitter. The cells on the periphery remain viable. They mutate, and the regulatory genes are damaged. Years later, that person develops cancer. Now, that’s true for radioactive iodine, that goes to the thyroid; cesium-137, that goes to the brain and muscles; strontium-90 goes to bone, causing bone cancer and leukemia. It’s imperative … that you understand internal emitters and radiation, and it’s not low level to the cells that are exposed. Radiobiology is imperative to understand these days.”